Acer to be 'first' with Chrome OS netbook

Sometime in H2 2010, apparently

Not satisfied with Android - added to its Aspire One D250 netbook last month - Acer is to roll out a mini-laptop based on Google's Chrome OS in less than a year's time.

Not that Acer itself has said so - the claim comes from an unnamed industry insider cited by DigiTimes, though the site notes Acer chairman JT Wang has said his firm will be first to launch a Chrome-based netbook.

Acer is also active in the Chromium OS project, the open source foundation on which Chrome OS is based. A stack of Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell notebooks and netbooks are listed by the company on Google's Chromium hardware compatibility page, for instance.

Chrome OS itself isn't due to appear for "a year", Google said at the OS' launch last month, though in the past it has pointed to sometime in H2 2010. Not coincidentally, that's when the mole says Acer's machine will be out. ®